


Never Was Cool

by wisdomeagle



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: A Portrait of the Author, Crushes, F/F, Ocean, Santa Barbara, Summer Camp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-16
Updated: 2004-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-10 12:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2025474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomeagle/pseuds/wisdomeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The summer she was fifteen, Tara spent three weeks away from home, fell in love, and learned the sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Was Cool

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the Indigo Girls song "Least Complicated." If one person says Tara is nothing more than my Mary Sue, well, she might be right. But she could at least have the decency not to say it. Many, many huge thanks to sage_theory for the beta. Any mistakes that remain (like the way I've either added five inches to Tara's height or subtracted them from Fred's) are mine alone.

Willow came back from L.A., her hair tied back in a tight knot, still sobbing, and collapsed into Tara's arms. "How'd it go, sweetie?" Tara asked, feeling more tired than she had in ages. Watching Dawn for three days had been exhausting, and Willow's grief exhausted Tara too. Willow clutched at her hand, curled her fingers into Tara's palms, and struggled to calm her sobbing.

"I'm not going to cry anymore," Willow sniffled. " _We_ aren't going to cry anymore."

"Sweetie..."

" _No_. It's not okay. Angel--Angel broke. He went upstairs in the hotel and Cordelia apologized about a million times and they all got sad all of a sudden, but Angel _broke_. We can't break, Tara. We've got to be strong. For Dawnie."

"How did the others take it? Cordelia... Wesley? Are they okay?"

"Better than Angel. They were all pretty shook up though. Cordy tried to tell me; they'd just gotten back from, I'm not sure, I think some other dimension; she wasn't very clear on it. They had some other people with them; like from that dimension? This demon guy, and this strange girl, and anyhow, Cordelia really wasn't very clear on what happened. No one was really talking all that much. We had chocolate. Gunn--no idea who he is, just some guy--gave everyone chocolate and then Wesley took Fred upstairs and...."

"Fred?" Tara asked, trying to keep her voice level.

"Yeah, Fred. She's the girl from the other dimension. She used to live in L.A., I think, and was studying physics, which is how she got into the other dimension in the first place, and she worked at..."

"I'm, I'm really tired," said Tara. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Sure," said Willow absently. "Is Dawn in bed?"

"Giles is staying with her at the house," said Tara, closing her eyes, trying to ask the question subtly. "Is she--Fred--what's she like?"

"Sort of pretty--glasses--and I think she's sort of--nuts. I didn't see her much; Wesley hurried her upstairs pretty quick. But she was nice."

Tara was quiet for a moment. Then she kissed Willow goodnight and grabbed the big blanket to wrap herself in.

"I'm going to start studying for finals," said Willow, sounding drained. "Sleep well."

Tara lay down and closed her eyes, but she knew she wouldn't sleep--not now. Not when Fred, Winifred Burkle, was--was in L.A.? She'd always been in L.A. in Tara's mind. But working for Angel. Insane. Insane?

Fred was a little flighty, but Tara would never say she was crazy. Still, it was five years ago. A lot could change in five years. She'd been fifteen, just done with her first year of high school, in Santa Barbara for a summer class with the Summer Academy for Talented Youth. Momma had said she should meet other students, try to get to know people her own age. "You'll be fine, sweetheart. We'll call every night. You be good," and then, under her breath, "Goddess bless." Daddy frowned and didn't say anything. They dropped her bags on the floor, then Tara was alone in the dorm room. Her roommate for the next three weeks had arrived earlier and left a note; she was out partying, hearts and squiggles, Jenna. Tara was so lonely she nearly cried.

She wasn't taking Relativity, though Jenna was. She was taking Spanish History and hated it. Her teacher was strange and talkative and _old_ , and said he hoped they'd all have fun this summer and maybe some of the pretty girls would get boyfriends. When he winked, Tara's insides scrunched up, like she was lying, but she hadn't said a word.

After their morning class, they were supposed to find their roommates and eat lunch, then play a game of tug-of-war with all the kids. Tara couldn't make herself, though. She stood lingering between the history classroom and the water fountain, summoning courage, wishing Momma had let her take a spell book with her. Not that she would do any spells, of course; Momma said spells were for home and secret. But knowing that she _could_ would be comforting.

"Hello, sweet potato, you look mighty thoughtful," said a friendly feminine voice behind her; Tara turned to look for the girl who'd spoken and was startled to see a whole crowd of students racing towards the outdoors. "You lonesome? When I get lonesome, I like to go see the city from the hilltops. It's real pretty."

"Are you here for--for--for.." Oh God, she was stuttering, and the girl, she now saw, was a young woman, and had a briefcase tucked under her arm and wore a suit. "You're a--a--teacher?"

"Sure am," said the woman. "My students call me Fred, and I'm from Texas--I betcha you already figured that out."

Tara tried to smile, but she felt too tall and awkward for friendliness. Fred must've been in graduate school if she was teaching at Summer Academy, but she was tiny--shorter than Tara, who was gangly and too big for her age. Her smile became a blush, but Fred was still looking at her kindly.

"Come on, honey pie. Let's go find somewhere to sit."

They ended up atop a hill staring down at the red roofs of Santa Barbara. "It's p-pretty," said Tara, unable to make the stuttering stop. She just shouldn't talk, and then Fred wouldn't realize how stupid she was. But Fred didn't let her be quiet, kept on talking about her daddy and momma and her house in Texas and school in Los Angeles, which sounded terrifying. Tara was compelled to nod and smile and laugh when Fred made little jokes, and finally, stuttering and all, she was explaining how Momma and Daddy and all her cousins and everyone lived together and she blushed, because she knew they were poor and uncultured.

Fred rested her tiny hands in her tiny lap, and suddenly Tara realized they were getting grass stains, which was fine for her, in old hand-me-down jeans, but Fred wore a nice skirt for teaching, cream colored and expensive-looking. Oh no. "Y-your clothes--they're a-all dirty."

"Oh, pah," said Fred, with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I'm not suited to these fancy rags anyhow. I'd much rather be in jeans like you, in a lab."

"Do you miss your lab?" asked Tara, and got the whole sentence out all at once, which made her so proud she actually smiled, which didn't match her question at all and oh no, now she was blushing again.

Fred was about to respond when a church bell clanged one and Fred leapt up and said, "Holy smoke, my class!" They raced back to the campus. Tara's sandals slapped the pavement, and Fred took off her shoes and let out little gasps of pain whenever a sharp stone bit her foot. When the reached the hallway again-- _their_ hallway, the one where Fred had looked at her and smiled--Fred gave Tara an impulsive hug, stepped back into her pumps, and walked into room 124. Tara, startled and out of breath, realized she had five minutes till her own class. Not enough time--she walked into class in a daze, didn't hear a word her teacher said, made a fool of herself when he called on her, and tripped on her way to the common room for an icebreaker she didn't want to participate in. She didn't care about any of it. Because Fred. Fred "but my parents named me Winifred after my great aunt; my friend Roy-o nicknamed me when I was a wee thing--what's your name again?" had spent an hour with her. 

She didn't utter another word to anyone, not even Jenna when she pranced in at two in the morning after a party. She didn't need to say a word, not when Jenna asked about hot guys and what she did for fun at home. Not till Jenna said, "Man, my Relativity teacher is a ditz. 'Miz-Burkle-call-me-Fred,'" she said in a sing-song voice. "That's what we call her. Miz-Burkle-call-me-Fred. Can you believe she was late for our second class this afternoon?"

"I th-th-think she's--she's v-v-v" Tara felt tears prickle her eyes. Very nice. She's very nice. She was afraid Jenna would laugh at her, but Jenna was having too much fun laughing at Fred, and the other teachers, and the event organizer.

"A real drag, these games. Tomorrow me and some guys are going to see if we can get into some clubs. Have you even been drunk?" Then without waiting for an answer, she closed her eyes and fell asleep, just like that. Tara lay awake for a long time.

Tuesday, she found Fred before class, wearing jeans and a tiny top. "Jeans?" she said, and Fred laughed and said they were better for running in if she was late again. Tara had hoped they could talk some more, and had decided maybe to tell Fred the secret--all the secrets, but especially the magic secret--because she thought maybe Fred would understand; she thought maybe Fred had some magic of her own, buried in her flyaway hair and piles of papers. But Fred said nicely, oh so nicely, that she had work to do and she'd talk to Tara later.

Tara cried in the bathroom till class, and wondered how she could have been so mistaken, to think that Fred actually liked her.

But! After the second class, Fred, face glowing, found Tara (who still had tear streaks on her cheeks), and said she was free. Tara jumped to her feet, tried hard not to skip, and they walked to the beach, which Tara had never seen, and she felt the salt water trickle under her bare feet. "We don't have much ocean in Texas. I like it. It's so big, and everything's big back home, except water. Big water's nice."

"It's pretty," said Tara, realizing she was repeating herself, and then, "W-we could swim. One time. C-can we?"

"We surely can," said Fred with a smile pushing up her thick glasses and thinking aloud. "Not during the week--we'll be all wet in class. But Saturday--only you'll have dances and things."

"I c-could skip them."

"Well then, Saturday. I'll make sure my schedule's free." Tara kicked hard at the sand, trying not to skip. She couldn't let her excitement show, not when everything was going so well. But even when she couldn't restrain herself, Fred just smiled warmly. 

The days became divided into Fred-time and Fredless-time. When Fred was talking, Tara felt as if the whole world was a magic playground, that everyone was friendly and that _she_ was special. When Fred wasn't around, well, then Tara was just Tara, fifteen and clumsy and hopelessly shy. There was a subdivision of Fredless time--when Jenna talked, Tara's head ached. She tried to spend as little time in her room as possible, and when she was there, Jenna was usually out. Jenna had a boyfriend now, Kenny, and they were rapidly moving past first base. Jenna hoped by the Farewell Dance they'd be ready for It.

Tara knew that even if she waited for all the years there were, even if she did everything Jenna did, wore makeup and flipped her hair flirtatiously, she would never, ever be ready for It--an elusive pronoun symbolizing something Tara only understood in the vaguest of terms, something that related both to Jenna's boyfriend and to Momma's explanations of fertility rituals. Tara hated Jenna for her loud-mouthed bragging, for her sexual frankness, and most of all for the cracks she still made about Miz-Burkle-call-me-Fred. That made Tara's eyes cross angrily, and she would spend hours finding her center again.

On their first Saturday, then, Tara wore her purple swimsuit self-consciously, and when she took off her wrap-around skirt, she started stammering immediately, about sand and salt and terror. Fred grinned--Tara loved it when Fred grinned her broad smile, her teeth glinting and her nose wrinkling--and said, "Now you're yarning like a Texan." Tara wished she were from Texas, wished she looked like Fred did in a swimsuit, athletic and petite and precious.

"Race ya' to the waves!" shrieked Fred, and she ran like--like Donny ran when he stepped on a bee, and Tara laughed to herself. Fred ran like Beltane maidens outrunning the spring hounds. Like--"Run, you ninny!" And Tara ran. Wind sand hot then water little lapping bubbling waves, then cold. She screamed, Fred caught her and though Tara was bigger, Fred had more muscle and dunked her, and Tara spluttered, then laughed, then drenched Fred. The water made touching okay, made Fred's bare shoulders fair game to hold and slap playfully and touch lightly, then firmly--Tara was laughing too hard to recognize the squirmy, guilty feeling in the pit of her stomach for what it was, and she didn't stop to think, not even when Fred grabbed her hand and plunged into a huge oncoming wave with her. She wasn't even terrified at the unfamiliarity of water crashing over her head. She felt as safe as when Momma held her hand when they did powerful magics.

Even the most powerful magics end, and their swim-day ended with an exhausted Tara stumbling back to her room. No Jenna--she would still be at the dance, of course. Before Tara had a chance to think, the phone rang. Momma.

"How's my girl?"

"I'm tired, Momma. I was out today. Swimming."

"Well good! I'm glad. Are you learning a lot?"

Tara at that instant couldn't remember a single fact about Spanish history. "Lots, Momma," she said, and her stomach clenched especially tightly. She tried to find a truth to tell. "I've got a nice friend."

Momma's "wonderful" didn't alleviate the feeling that she was telling a terrible lie. She didn't say anything for fear she'd stutter out of guilt, and Momma said, "Have a good night's sleep." When she was alone, Tara swore she wouldn't see Fred again. Anything that made her feel guilty when talking to Momma couldn't be good, so Fred must not be good, even if she _was_ Fred.

But Monday morning before class, she was in Fred's classroom, with no recollection of having walked there. She smiled shyly, and Fred smiled a Fred-smile, and Tara said, "Thanks--for, I mean, the beach. I had l-l-l-lots of fun."

"Me too," said Fred. "Heaps of fun. Landfills full o' fun. Would you like to do it again?"

"Well, I..."

"Unless you had other plans for the weekend? Want to go to that dance thingie with some sweet boy in your history class?" Fred's voice was friendly, but Tara felt scared and tongue-tied, and so said nothing.

"Anyhow, I bet you'd like ice cream after class, huh? Three scoops. My treat. I'll see you by the water fou--oops! I've got to skedaddle. I've got to meet with a student two minutes ago!" And she was gone.

There was ice cream, and then walking, and then the park, and then the bookstore, and the little antique shop where Tara found a pendant she knew had real healing energy. When she told Fred _that_ , Fred laughed, a polite and disbelieving laugh, but friendly, and Tara laughed like it was a joke to her, too. Tara was glad Jenna was never in the room either, for she would've noticed Tara's absence, and questioned her about it. When she was in her room, she sat cross-legged on the bed and tried to meditate. She hadn't opened her textbook since the second day of class. She wouldn't get her credit for the class, but oh well, she didn't care. She only cared about Fred, and eating ice cream and buying balloons and dodging her fellow students when they tried to introduce themselves.

On Friday, the second Friday since they'd met, Fred told Tara she had to chaperone the dance Saturday night, wrinkling her nose in displeasure. "I would sure be happy if you'd come keep me company," she said. That settled it--Tara found her nicest dress and shiniest shoes, and brushed her hair for hours, and dared to ask Jenna for a little lip-gloss, so Jenna asked if she'd found a hunk, but didn't wait for an answer before she complained that Kenny was suck-ass at kissing but rejoiced that Marla thought with space cadet call-me-Fred on chaperone duty, she could smuggle alcohol into the party. Tara didn't care about any of it.

When she and Jenna walked into the gym, Jenna found Kenny and stuck her tongue down his mouth, and Tara made a beeline for Fred, who was wearing pink and looking pretty. "You sure look nice," said Fred, and Tara smiled and stared at her feet. She stood as close to Fred as she could without daring to touch her. They leaned against the refreshment table, and Tara helped herself to punch every time Fred said, "Look, he's awful cute. Why don't you dance with him?" Tara's heart felt like a slowly deflating helium balloon. Fred was so pretty, but the music was so loud, and the punch was so yummy. Fizzy. Fizzy and yummy. "How about him, he looks like a nice fellow, or him, or him, or him, him, him..." Fred looked so strange in the light, like she was practically glowing. It was so nice to be standing there with Fred. Her head did somersaults, then backflips. Finally, when the world was at its most tilty, Fred said, "You're drunker than a skunk!", hurriedly consulted with another teacher, and dragged Tara into the open air.

Once she could breathe again, Tara took in the cold night, the brilliant stars, Fred's worried look, and clutched her stomach, but even though Fred said, "You want to be sick, hon?" she wasn't nauseated, just nervous. But the nervousness was nice, flying which way and that, and Tara liked it, pretty nervousness, smiles nicely, like Fred. Hello, Fred, Fred... and Tara knew, because Jenna said, that when you liked someone, you ought to kiss them, so she tried to kiss Fred, but Fred's smile froze, and her arms stiffened, and Tara was walking, was walking so far, was in her room--so funny, what a funny night it had been.

Sunday morning was the very worst morning Tara had ever had. Jenna, for possibly the only time that summer, focused all her attention on Tara, specifically on how she'd passed out on the dance floor. And Tara's head hurt, and her eyes hurt. She was going to be sick, and she'd tried to _kiss_ Fred. That made her want to be sick all over again, and the only thing that was comforting her at all was the knowledge that Jenna didn't know about Fred. In the midst of her confused jumble of thoughts, she realized she only had one more week till she went home and never saw Fred again.

She was torn between avoiding Fred out of embarrassment and seeking her out to apologize. In the end, cowardice won out, and she hid in the history classroom before class, through break, until long after the students had scattered at the end of the day and Fred was sure to be back in her apartment for the day. While she hid, she read, every chapter she'd skipped to go listen to a lecture with Fred, and she wrote, all the essays she'd left undone while she confided her dreams to Fred, and while she read and worked and hid, she tried desperately hard not think of Fred. It simply wasn't possible. She made up her mind that the next day, she _would_ talk to her, if only to apologize, even if all she could do was stutter out her guilt and shame.

But Tuesday, Fred wasn't on campus. Jenna said she'd left a message with the supervisor that she was sick, and Tara almost cried while Jenna rejoiced at class having been cancelled, and when Jenna went off to make out with Kenny, Tara angrily read another chapter of her history text, and swore she'd stop thinking about it, put it behind her, be a big girl and move on. But she cried herself to sleep, and although she resolutely did her best to avoid Fred, even though she ducked into empty classrooms when she saw the sunlight glinting off thick glasses, even though she tried, she couldn't stop herself from feeling Fred's hand in hers, wading through the ocean that was so new and so big to both of them. 

By Friday, which was the last day of classes, the last day Fred would be on campus, Tara's last chance ever, she was still tempted just to hide when, at their noontime break, Fred approached her purposefully in the hallway, in _their_ hallway, and said, "How would you feel about some lunch tomorrow?" as lightly and as gaily as if nothing had happened, as if it hadn't been six days. Tara murmured an inane acquiescence, and was too worried to skip, but when she handed in three weeks worth of work, her teacher too surprised to ask if she had a beau, she was smiling for the first time in days. Then she realized that whatever Fred had to say at lunch, it would definitely include goodbye. The faintest of good moods she had allowed herself faded, and she felt the loss begin to inch up over her spine. The feeling didn't dissipate until noon the next day, when Tara sat across a table from Fred, her feet tucked up under her on the soft blue booth. Fred ate mozzarella sticks, pulling the cheese with her teeth, and Tara found herself staring at the cheese, stringy and hot and torn between Fred's teeth. She nibbled at a house salad.

"Tara, sweetie," Fred began, her brow furrowing, "I'm a mite worried about you."

"I kn-n-now."

"Would you like to talk about it? Air your laundry a bit. Keepin' all those feelin's inside's gonna make you bust."

Tara stared down at the table. Its glass top overlaid a red tablecloth. She tugged at the glass, trying to even it out. Sharing. Sharing feelings could be okay. If she could open her mouth, maybe. Then she'd be able to say--to say--

"Tara, hon?"

"I'm s-so sorry."

"Oh, no! It's only just, I'm a tad old for you, you know."

Tara nodded numbly.

"But I care about you, Tara sweetie. You're an awful special little girl."

"F-fifteen," said Tara, succeeding in making Fred smile a little. She had to say something else, something to make Fred smile broadly at her, stop staring at her with apologetic brown eyes that seemed to say that Tara was little, a little baby who was too young to be her friend.

"And awful old for fifteen, but you know, it wouldn't be right, for there to be anything more than a real special friendship. I'm sorry, honey."

"But--g-going away. Soon. I don't want to g-g-go."

"I know, Tara-girl--but we've just gotta. I've got things to do in L.A.-the library will be missin' me, and I've got my test tubes 'n' beakers likely needin' their momma--and you'd be missin' your momma, too."

Tara felt an unfamiliar pang of homesickness, and remembered her mother's skirts and pearls and incense, and she realized she was going home. Fred's thin fingers looped through an onion ring, her hair wrapped around her neck, and her glasses slipped down her nose. Tara had never seen such beauty, not even her mother, not even the crystalline spell of gold and silver Momma did last solstice. Fred laughed gently when Tara stared, and said, "You be good, Tara, and you write to me, and I'll write to you. And then in three years, you come to UCLA, and I can teach you physics."

"Oh, I don't--no. Too hard. Physics. I c-c-could study w-with y-you, though."

"Of course you could," said Fred, with a grin, "and don't sell yourself short. You'll study whatever you want."

Outside Tara's room, half an hour later, the time had come, and Tara thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her overalls. She was determined not to say anything, to give Fred an impression of cool, silent maturity to remember her by. But Fred was all arms and legs and hugs, cheery goodbye and a promise of next summer, and letters and her address on the back of a physic problem she'd been working on. Tara wrote hers on her final grade sheet for history (a surprising B+), and then they hugged again, and Tara felt all shaky and cold. Then the whole world stopped for a minute. Fred placed soft hands on both Tara's cheeks and kissed her lips so lightly that Tara could hardly feel it, but that her whole body and all her sense were absorbed in trying to figure out if it was real.

"Be good, you hear?" said Fred, and Tara was suddenly aware that Fred was close to tears. "I'll miss you."

When Fred turned to go, Tara found her wits, or at least her courage, and said, hardly audible but without a single stutter, "I love you, Fred."

Then they'd come to take her home, and Jenna had gushed and sobbed and told her they'd always be friends, and then--it was gone. She wrote her first letter the minute she was back in her room, and she'd gone proudly to the mailbox, where Daddy stopped her and asked her who she was writing to. He'd gotten the whole story out of her, except for the parts Tara already suspected would make him not just angry but livid, and he said if she expected to get any letters from any lady physicist, she was dead wrong.

Though she ran to check the mail as soon as school let out every day for months, and though she herself wrote diligently and mailed her letters on the way to school, Tara never heard from Fred except finally to get her last three letters back marked "Return to Sender." She was never sure whether Daddy'd taken any letters or whether Fred had just forgotten all about her, but eventually she decided it didn't really matter. Fred was gone, no longer a factor.

That didn't stop her from writing letters, just from mailing them. Didn't stop her from remembering, just from daring to put the memories into words. When she and Donny and Beth walked down to the creek and went wading, Tara closed her eyes and could almost feel salt water trickling over her feet, could almost feel Fred's laughter whipping her hair around her head. But she kept opening her eyes and finding herself in muddy water up to her ankles, watching Donny pull Beth's hair.

When the time came to apply to colleges, she opened the catalogue from UCLA with reverence she usually reserved for spellbooks. She read each page thoroughly, not skipping ahead to the physics department like she was tempted to. But when she reached those pages, she found nothing but a blurry picture of some graduate students, one of whom _could_ have been Fred, she supposed, if you squinted. Nothing else. She hadn't wanted to admit that she had been waiting for this catalogue, and the name it might contain, for years, but tears came to her eyes unbidden. She toyed with the application for three days, but finally, utterly defeated, tossed it aside. Applying would be admitting she was still holding out for Fred, and she wasn't. She _wasn't_. And when she said it often enough, it finally became a sort of truth.

And Fred was in L.A. Living with Angel. Fred was crazy, Fred was alive, Fred had not so much forgotten her as had other things to worry about. Two years of Willow vanished, and she was suddenly trying to decide, once again, how much Fred meant to her, how many decisions she was willing to make on the memory (which she might have made up in her adolescent irrationality) of one innocent kiss. 

She could go to L.A., and... tell Fred she was dating Willow? Fred would smile and say, "That's wonderful; I'm so glad you're over your silly little crush on me." Well, Fred could never be so cruel, but that would be the idea, and Tara could not bear that. She would much rather stay away from Fred today so that she could remember the Fred of yesterday, always waltzing down the hallway of a UC Santa Barbara dorm, always sane and happy but choking back tears, always saying, "And I love you too, Tara. And don't you forget it."

an end


End file.
